Category Archives: launching things

My family was hopeful that after the launch of my debut novel, things would return to normal. And ideally, I would have dropped everything and gone back to matching socks, if only my novel-in-progress had not been weighing on me like a term paper for a class I’d stopped attending. Since I was already short-listed for Space Cadet of The Year, and considering how little time remained before summer, it hardly seemed worthwhile to switch gears. If I could just take the momentum from my book launch and apply it to finishing next novel, I could be present for an earthling summer and sortsocks in time for camp. Unfortunately, over the previous year I’d only demonstrated ability to focus on next novel while in solitary confinement, at least 450 miles from home. Sacrifices would be required to replicate the intensity. Earth would have to go.

I printed the existing draft and read it aloud, plunging deep into the world of my characters, maintaining an iron grip on the narrative line while my grasp of reality flirted with black holes. I solved literary problems while driving the car, but my passengers rolled their eyes as I passed destinations, again and again. I rallied for the dinner hour, but was no good for conversation, and relied on the puppy for homework patrol. At the very moment it seemed our household chaos could not possibly get worse, oldest son arrived home for the summer and unloaded a year’s worth of dorm life just inside the back door. He left a narrow path to the kitchen but that hardly mattered for obvious reasons.

For the record, I entered a grocery store during all this, but the minute I tossed the first item into my cart, a distressed text message originating from afterschool sports screamed: WHERE R U?? I had to ditch.

Yes, I managed to finish the novel, but for the first time in my life, I truly understand my late grandfather. I laughed at the absent-minded professor stories, but now I know why he backed out of the garage before opening the garage door and why he sometimes wore his pyjama bottoms to work. And I’m with him on driving to the university and taking the bus home. At the most distracted point of this episode, I hauled three teenagers out of bed for a very early morning obligation at church and then had to explain to them, and the assembly of church people whose morning I disrupted, that I was operating in a different week of the month. If they had flipped their calendars ahead one week they would have understood exactly where I was coming from, or where I was at that moment. Someday it will seem funny.

And then I reached the end. I pressed send, launching new novel through cyberspace and into my agent’s orbit. After a brief personal celebration, I reorganized The Sock Department of our Laundry Room, patronized three grocery stores, and relieved the puppy of command. At one point a teenager grumbled, “don’t you have a book to write?” It’s nice to be back.

My Jane Austen Summer celebrated its launch over Afternoon Tea in the French Room of The Adolphus Hotel in Downtown Dallas. These photos are your virtual ticket to the event.

Getting to The French Room is half the fun. You don’t just walk in. From the lobby, a wood-paneled entryway offers a staircase to a spacious landing. A right turn on the landing and a further ascent create a sense of leaving the real world behind. When I entered The French Room, I knew two things: I had never been there before, and I would never forget being there now, so striking was the beauty of the marble floor, elegant appointments, and glorious painted ceiling. Hard to believe Downtown Dallas was only two floors below. Hard to believe I was launching my novel in that room.

As I enjoyed the ambience, the menu, and the impeccable service, it occurred to me that everything in The French Room was perfect. The only thing left was–my talk. Yikes! Just being in The French Room inspires awe and creates a certain pressure on a speaker to rise to its standard of beauty. I ate one of Sue’s Tricky Truffles. If I’d had a bottle of sherry, I would have spiked everyone’s tea at that moment, knowing my remarks are smarter, more articulate, and funnier, if my audience has imbibed spirits directly before my talk.

At the appropriate time, I stepped up to the podium to introduce my debut novel. Rather than indulge

The glorious French Room

the impulse to keep up with The French Room, adding a Baroque flourish I would have regretted forever, I stuck with my prepared remarks. As a result, my talk ended blessedly without incident, ensuring that my memories of launching My Jane Austen Summer in The French Room will always be as happy as the pictures.

I have been a published author for a full week which qualifies me to observe that the old uneasy feeling of handing my precious manuscript over to my husband or my writing group and then WAITING for the verdict, now seems cozy and quaint, compared to the dizzy sensation of surrendering 40,000 copies to the United States of America, its territories and possessions, the Philippines, Canada, and the rest of the world, with the exception of countries listed on Schedule A, and WAITING for the verdict.

Regardless, it has been a full week and although it was great fun to be surrounded by family and friends on my book’s big day, the party’s over and, as one of my sons pointed out yesterday, we still have no bread. Now that the book is out in the world where she will have to rely on her merits to survive, it is time to resume grocery shopping, address maintenance issues deferred for the last five years, and lower the boom on homework procrastinators. And promote the book. Although they claim to love their new “sister”, one family member asked when are we gonna get all these books out of the living room?… (She’s not going back to the hospital).

Many thanks to all who joined me at Borders for the launch event. You honored me with your presence. And thanks to Bob Jones who provided pictures to share with those who are far away. For more pictures, click the Facebook badge to the right of this post and check out photos on the My Jane Austen Summer Facebook page.

Released!

Surrounded by friends and family

The bookstore is only 4.7 miles from home but it took 10 years to get there!

My Jane Austen Summer is released as of today. If you have not yet ordered your copy, you can do so from the links on my website: www.cindysjones.com

If you are in Dallas, please come to the launch event:

My Jane Austen Summer Launch Day Event Tuesday, March 29 at 7 pmBorder’s Books and Music
5500 Greenville Avenue (facing Lovers Ln.)
214-739-1166This event is free and open to the public and no reservation is required

My Jane Austen Summer celebrates publication today with a four-stop blog tour and giveaways on each blog. Visit and leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of the novel and a package of Lily Berry’s Pink Rose Tea, created by Bingley’s Teas, Ltd. Each blog will hold a separate drawing, meaning four chances to win. Here’s where we’re celebrating:

One of the unexpected pleasures of working with the copy editor on my book was receipt of the Style Sheet, a document summarizing the editorial conventions to be followed in preparing my text for publication. Included were explanations of my usage, “narrative is colloquial, may not always be strictly grammatical” (thankyouverymuch), a list of ironic labels I enjoyed seeing all in one place, and a roll of place names and proper names that, when presented in such a businesslike manner, seemed oddly real, like seeing my children dressed up for Easter brunch. On March 29, I will celebrate the birth of My Jane Austen Summer and welcome my 57 new fictional characters into the world, including: Lily, Willis, Vera, Nigel, Omar, Magda, Archie, Bets, Gary, Lady Weston, Randolph and Pippa, one cat, one dog, and all the others I spent five years wrangling into a plot.

Please join this book birthday celebration at either of two launch events to be held in Dallas. Here is your formal invitation:

My Jane Austen Summer Launch Day Event Tuesday, March 29 at 7 pmBorder’s Books and Music
5500 Greenville Avenue (facing Lovers Ln.)
214-739-1166This event is free and open to the public and no reservation is required

Question: What do Bingley’s Teas, my debut novel, and my mother all have in common? Answer: They are all part of my book promotion plan. My platform is Tea. Brainstorming for a small favor to give away at book launch events, and considering that tea plays an important role in my book, I found myself wishing for tea bags with the book’s cover on the label. Then I remembered Bingley’s Teas Ltd: Home of the Jane Austen Tea Series. If Bingley’s can blend a tea for Fanny Price, why not blend a tea for my protagonist? From there, the Tea Idea grew into a means of enhancing the literary experience, lifting the book from a solitary read to a social event. Basic Plan:

Produce Lily Berry’s Pink Rose Tea, a blend of organic roses and berries in a green tea, available on my website.

A Literary Heroine With Her Own Tea!

Hold book talk/signing events at tea rooms. Work with tea venues to offer “Literary Teas” by providing a book talk after the last course is served. I’ll bring the tea! A great place for book clubs to converge.

Book Clubs can try this at home. Book clubs can host a Literary Tea in their own homes. My website provides ideas, suggestions, and recipes to get organized.

How do I know so much about tea parties? My mother developed Afternoon Tea at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas to raise money for the Cathedral Restoration Fund. The annual tea involved an army of volunteers and sold out every year: 400 guests at each seating. Working with my mother all those years, I got the hang of tea production on a grand scale, details of which made their way into my novel. The recipe for St. Mary’s Guild’s Dried-Cherry Scones is included on my website.

With all my tea experience, I’ve never helped blend the actual tea. Working with Julia Matson of Bingley’s Tea Ltd was a joyful collaboration. Lily Berry’s Pink Rose Tea is an original blend of organic green tea, organic rose petals, narcissus, and whole dried fruits–including strawberries and rhubarb–a combination chosen to illustrate Lily’s fresh, romantic, and often surprising personality. The tea comes in a pretty white pouch with a window on the back so you can see the beautiful tea.

Turns out, Twitter was a walk in the park as far as book promotion learning curves go. For the past two months I have been homeschooling myself in paypal buttons, tea tasting, shipping costs, and commercial label design. Don’t get me started on file conversion.

Launch is 26 days away. Have you pre-ordered your copy? You can place an order with your favorite online bookseller from my website: www.cindysjones.com

If you are in Dallas on Tuesday, March 29, please join me at Border’s Books on Lover’s Lane at 7pm for a launch event. The party is free and open to the public and I’ll bring the tea!

I almost did not post a blog today. I’m tired of listening to myself, and I would be tired of listening to me if I were you. Everyone in my house thinks I’m a little wound up. Don’t read this unless you have nothing better to do. (I think I’m experiencing false labor for authors).

My book will be available in stores on March 29 and I am hyper-focusing on that date as I have not obsessed on a date since the labor and delivery of my sons. March 29 will come and go without much notice for the rest of the world, as it spins through spring break and on to Easter. Only for me, does everything come to a screeching halt on March 29. Life as I know it will cease.

On March 29.

When I was hyper-focusing on the due date of my children, I imagined life as a mother. I expected fulfillment of dreams and transcendence into a new level of existence. I sewed crib bumpers, laundered onesies in Dreft, and debated cloth versus disposable. As it turns out, actual motherhood is less about crib bumpers and more about being The Person who makes sure a fragile infant lives and thrives. Once they were born it was like wearing a shock collar as a constant reminder of their utter dependence, although I never needed a jolt of electricity to remind me. Once they were born, it was as if some of my vital organs left to live outside of my body. You don’t forget where you left your heart and lungs.

I suspect that life after publication will be less about published bliss and more about dealing with the new reality that part of my imagination has begun living outside of my head. The characters and setting created in my mind will take published form and, although Harper Collins will do their part, the book’s survival will be up to me. A book lives as long as it is being read and my job is to make sure that readers know it exists. I’ll be busy doing all I can do to ensure the survival of my baby fiction. And I won’t need a shock collar to remember where I left my imagination.